1. Field of the Disclosed Embodiments
This disclosure relates to systems and methods for employing cloud administration services and systems to interact with electronically-readable component monitoring modules associated with customer replaceable components in customer owned and/or controlled devices, such as, for example, image forming devices.
2. Related Art
Industries make extensive beneficial use of a capability to externally monitor the status of myriad customer replaceable components in all manner devices and systems with which the customer replaceable components are associated. The monitoring of these customer replaceable components is often facilitated through the use of an externally or remotely electronically-readable monitoring module for monitoring one or more characteristics of the customer replaceable component. The monitored characteristics can include static information, i.e., information that does not change over the life of the component, such as a model or serial number and/or compatibility of the customer replaceable component with the system or device within which the customer replaceable component is installed. The monitoring module can also be used to record, in an electronically-readable format, dynamically changing information relating to a particular characteristic of the customer replaceable component. Such dynamic information includes, for example, information on use, maintenance, failures, diagnostics, remanufacture, and remaining service life, among other characteristics of the customer replaceable component.
Outputs from these monitoring modules are received locally at the system or device via some manner of graphical user interface (GUI) associated with the system or device within which the customer replaceable component is installed. In order to appropriately exploit this information locally, however, the GUI must be monitored. Because constant monitoring of the GUI is often impractical, systems or devices that provided only local monitoring often experienced unanticipated shutdowns due to unrecognized or uncorrected pending or actual conditions of one or more replaceable components when locally displayed alerts went unheeded by available personnel. Such shutdowns were inconvenient and often caused customers or other end-users to incur substantial expense in (1) lost revenue due to unanticipated down time for the system or device, and (2) requirements for expedited servicing, and/or immediately fillable orders for replacement components.
In order to address this shortfall, many industries transitioned from local monitoring ad hoc of customer replaceable components via the electronically-readable monitoring modules to external and remote, particularly supplier-based or manufacturer-based, monitoring of customer replaceable components at end-use sites. This change allowed suppliers and manufacturers to independently monitor the status of customer and/or field replaceable components in order to avoid, for example, non-availability of required replacement components at a point and time of need.
Examples of externally monitorable systems or devices include various types of electronic office equipment, particularly image forming devices, such as those disclosed in, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,351,621 to Richards et al., which is commonly assigned and the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Richards discloses customer replaceable components, called customer replaceable units (“CRUs”), which routinely include electronically-readable monitoring chips containing static information for identification of the CRU, and/or dynamic information relating to a particular CRU's operating status. Richards refers to such electronically-readable monitoring chips as customer replaceable unit monitors (“CRUMs”).
Richards explains that, when an individual CRU is installed in the disclosed modularly designed office equipment, a communication interface is established with the CRUM as a component status monitoring module located within, or externally mounted to, a particular CRU. The CRUM enables the office equipment to monitor a characteristic of the CRU by reading data from, and potentially updating the information contained by writing data to, the monitoring module.
In printers and/or other image forming devices, systems for communicating with and/or remotely diagnosing the status of widely-dispersed devices are as well-known as they are in other technology areas. These devices communicate via any manner of wired or wireless communications with network interfaces such as, for example, via telephone lines, local area networks, and/or the Internet, in order to provide, for example, a remote service center with access to the device in order to read status and/or diagnostic information produced by the device. Remote and widely dispersed access is thus implemented such that an operator, supplier, manufacturer, diagnostic technician or other individual whose duties may require access to information regarding the status of the device, or any replaceable component operating within the device, can review the information.
As communication capabilities have continued to evolve, so too have the capabilities to not only read information from, but also to write information to, CRUMs. In this manner, the ability to communicate information to, and receive information from, CRUMs provides a capacity for management of CRUs and consumables in an image forming device by allowing the association of data with the CRUMs.
Today, the term “cloud computing,” for example, for the provision of computing services through a cloud administration system, is generally considered to refer to delivering computing capacity as a service via a combined wired/wireless network in which shared resources, software and information are provided to computers and other devices over the network (typically the Internet). Cloud computing provides a new model for the delivery of IT services based on Internet protocols, through network systems that include “virtualized” resources. The cloud provides an interactive resource in which information and applications may be stored and accessed.